Camput. & Cpr Res. Vol. 7, pp.

W-213
Permmn Press Ltd.. 1980. Printed in Great Britain

SCHOOL BUS ROUTES GENERATOR IN URBAN

SURROUNDINGS*

GILLESDULAC,t JACQUES
A. FERLAND,~
and PIERRE A. FORGUESO
D6partement d’informatique, et de recherche op&ationnelle, Universite de Montreal, Canada H3C 3J7

Scope and purpose-This paper analyses an operative planning process for the transportation of students to
schools (and back home). The scale and the complexity of the problem lead the authors to use heuristic
methods both to assign students to stops and to generate routes. Several vehicle routing techniques are
analysed and compared in the context of school busing. In the final stage of the process, the solutions can
be improved through branch exchange procedures.

Abstract-In this paper, a comprehensive study of the school bus routing problem in an urban surroundings
is presented. It complements and extends over previous school bus routing studies. The problem is defined
as a multi-stage process where the stops are generated, where the students are assigned to these, and where
the bus routes are generated. Several suited versions of vehicle routing techniques are analysed and
compared. Branch exchange procedures to improve the solutions are also studied. Our numerical experi-
mentation indicates that each problem should be solved several times with different routing techniques,
followed by branch exchange procedures, to ensure reliable solutions.

I. INTRODUCTION
In this paper, a comprehensive study of the school bus routing problem in an urban surround-
ings is presented. In general, this problem occurs in a district including several schools. The first
stage of the analysis is to select the stops for each school where the students are picked up and
delivered by their bus, and to assign the students to these selected stops. In the second stage,
the routes are generated for each school independently. Thus, a vehicle routing ‘problem,
defined in terms of nodes to be covered, has to be solved for each school.
Several suited versions of vehicle routing techniques are analysed and compared. Notice
that the routes generated with most of the standard vehicle routing techniques start and end at
the same node (i.e. the school in our problem). This calls for modifications to solve our problem
since a route rarely starts at the school where it ends. As a matter of fact, a prior study using
crude vehicle routing techniques proved to be unsatisfactory by the school board authorities.
Section 2 includes the problem definition in term of both its characteristics and its
constraints and the approach of solution. The iterative steps of the approach and the techniques
are analysed in Sec. 3 and 4. For the vehicle routing aspect of the problem, the following
techniques are analysed: Clarke and Wright technique [1,2], Yellow technique [3], insertion
technique [4], Gillet and Miller technique [5], and Newton and Thomas technique 161.To further
improve the solutions, some branch exchanges procedures [7] are also studied. To conclude, the
numerical results are summarized in Sec. 4.3. These results indicate that a problem should be
solved several times with different techniques to ensure reliable solutions. As we shall see, the

*This researchwas supportedby a grantfrom the TransportationDevelopmentand ResearchAgency of Canada and by

a F.C.A.C. grant from the Education Ministry of the Province of Quebec.
tGilles Dulac is working at BELL CANADA headquarters, Montreal, P.Q. He graduated from University of Montreal
in 1978 with the degree of MSc. (INFQRMATIQUE) and from M&ii University in 1976 with the degree of B.Com
(Major in Mathematics). He has seven years experience in banking and finance and a few years in computer programming
and systems development. His present occupational interests are concerned with solving large scale (cl) mathematical
programming problems on the computer.
SJacques A. Ferland is associate professor in the department of Itiformatique et Recherche Op6rationnelle at the
University of Montrealsince 1971.In 1971he received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University. He
also obtained a M.Sc. in Statistics from Stanford University in 1971, a M.Sc. in Informatique in 1%7 and a B.Sc. in
Mathematics in 1966from the Universit6 de Mont&al. His main research interests include network flow theory, large scale
mathematical programming, and generalized convexity.
QDuringhis studies he worked for a college data processing center where he developed a student information system
and a student scheduling system. After graduation he entered the data processing center of the Quebec Ministry of
Education where he is now in charge of the development and impkmentation of a school bus transportation and student
districting system to be used throughout Quebec’s school boards. This system is planned to use the school bus routing and
scheduling components developed by the University of Montreal, to which he contributed during his graduate studies.

I99
200 G.DULACet al.
“best solution” criterion is hardly (unlikely) defined because the quality of a solution depends
on its easiness to be scheduled, but scheduling time scale is not included yet at this stage of the
complete students’ transportation planning process.

Z.PROBLEM STATEMENT
Let G = (IV, A) be the road network of a city. The edges are the street segments and the
nodes are their intersections and the schools location. For each school in the network, the set of
students to be transported there and their locations in the network are specified. Notice that
even if there are many schools in the network, the routes are determined independently for
each of them (or for each group of schools in the same neighbourhood considered as a unique
larger school). Indeed, at this stage of the complete students’ transportation process, only the
length of each route and the number of students along each of them are relevant.
Our aim is to design efficient techniques to generate school bus routes subject to the
following constraints: (i) the bus capacities are not to be exceeded; (ii) there is an upper bound
on the transportation time; (iii) there is also an upper bound on the total distance that a student
has to walk.
The approach proposed to solve this problem includes four steps:
Step 1: Each student is assigned to a node near by his location. In general it is one of the
two nodes incident to the edge where he is located in the network.
Step 2: A set of stops is determined for each school (or group of schools). These stops are
either provided by the authorities or generated by the system.
Step 3: The students are assigned to the stops. This assignment must satisfy constraint (iii).
Step 4: A set of routes is determined for each school (or group of schools) independently.
These routes verify constraint (i) and (ii). To make it easier, constraint (ii) is replaced by an
upper bound on the number of stops and by an upper bound on the length of each route.
This approach was first proposed by Bodin and Berman in [8]. In step 1, the students of each
school in the network are assigned to a subset of the nodes in N. These are called mini-stops in
Bodin and Berman terminology. This assignment of students to mini-stops makes it easier to
compute walking distances in the network and to analyse students distribution in the network.
Next, steps 2-4 are executed for each school (or group of schools) independently. Notice
the following major differences between the implementation proposed in [8] and the one in this
paper. Bodin and Berman assume that the stops are provided by the school authorities whereas
they can be generated by the system in step 2 of our implementation. Also, to determine reliable
school bus routes, a set of heuristic are analysed and tested.
Recall that the routes generated are the inputs for a later stage of the complete students’
transportation process where the routes and school starting times are to be scheduled to
minimize the bus fleet size. Hence the easiness to schedule these routes should be the most
important criterion to compare the solutions generated by these heuristics. Thus, at the present
stage of the complete process, since the time scale is not yet introduced, the criterion used must
reflect this forthcoming scheduling stage as much as possible. The criterion, proposed here, is a
compromise between the number of routes and the sum of routes lengths. On one hand, it might
be easier to schedule a large number of short routes than a small number of long ones. On the
other hand, the fleet size might increase with the total number of routes. Thus, the solution
strategy is to determine several solutions with different techniques, and to select the solution
minimizing the product (number of routes) * (sum of routes lengths). Several other strategies
with various weights for the two factors may also be analysed, but for the purpose of our study
we limit ourselves to the above stated one.
An alternate approach to determine the routes would be to consider picking up the students
at their locations. Then the problem would be defined in terms of street segments to be covered.
However, in an urban surroundings, the authorities prefer the first alternative since the students
can walk to their stops on sidewalks. Notice that this alternate approach is likely to be adopted
in a rural surroundings.
The problem was stated in terms of routes taking students to school. The converse problem
of taking students from the school to their locations can be solved similarly.
 School bus routes generator in urban su~oundings 201

3. STOPS GENRRATOR AND STOPS ASSIGNMENT

In step 1, the edges of the network are scanned successively, and the students on each of
them are assigned to one of the nodes incident to it unless neither of them are mini-stops. In
this case, the students are assigned to the nearest (to one of the incident nodes) mini-stop. To
reduce the number of mini-stops, the students on an edge are assigned to the incident node (or
to the nearest mini-stop) with the largest number of students already assigned to it. If the
incident nodes have the same number of students already assigned to each of them, then the
choice is made at random.
The stops for each school are determined in step 2. The authorities can specify them, or they
can specify a set of potential stops and an upper bound on the walking distance from the
mini-stop to the stop of each student. Now, two conflictingapproaches are.available.The first is
to minimize the total walking distance of the students with an upper bound constraint on the
number of stops. The second is to minimize the number of stops with an upper bound
constraint on the walking distance for each student. The second approach was adopted because
it seems easier to determine better routes with a smaller number of stops.
This problem can be formulated as a set covering problem or a multi-centers location
problem191.Instead, the stops are determined with a procedure based on student densities around
potentiai stops. The procedure is to choose the potential stop with the largest number of students
within a walking distance to it. These students are assumed to be assigned to this stop, and the
procedure is repeated with the remaini~ students and with the remaining ~tential stops. The
procedure ends when all students are assumed to be assigned to a stop. This procedure is much
easier to implement than techniques to solve set covering problems or multi~enters location
problem191.
This procedure is compared with a set covering approach, and the results are su~~i2ed in
Table 1. For three different problems, the number of stops generated with the procedure is
compared with the linear pro~amming solution of the relaxed set covering problem and with
the rounded solution. The results indicate that the number of stops generated with the
procedure is within 10%of the minimal number of stops. Furthermore, if the stops, generated
with the two different approaches, are used to determine routes, then the total lengths of these
routes are comparable.
If the authorities are not completely satisfied with the solution, then the problem can be
solved again with some stops specified by them. In this case, all the students within a walking
distance to these stops are assumed to be assigned to them, and the procedure is applied with
the remaining students and with the remaining potential stops.
It is worth noticing that this procedure replicates the process that the authorities use to
generate the routes manually. Indeed, they route the buses through the middle of densily
populated areas.

Table 1.Stops generated

202 G.DULAC et al.

Finally, in step 3, the students are assigned to stops. The procedure is to assign each student
to the nearest stop to his mini-stop. In the case where upper bounds are specified on the number
of students at some stops, if these upper bounds are exceeded when the preceding procedure is
applied, then a straightforward transportation problem can be formulated and solved.

4.ROUTES GENERATOR
Once we know the number of students assigned to each stop for a given school (or group of
schools), the bus routes are generated in step 4 according to the following constraints: (i) the
bus capacities are not exceeded; (ii) there is an upper bound on the number of stops; (iii) there
is an upper bound on the length of a route.
Several suited versions of well known vehicle routing techniques are analysed and com-
pared.
There exist two main approaches solving vehicle routing problems. They are referred to as
“route first-cluster second” and “cluster first-route second” in [8]. In the hrst approach, a giant
tour going through each stop is once determined and then broken into subtours that meet the
constraints. Newton and Thomas technique[6] illustrates this approach. Conversely, the
second approach clusters stops into subsets, for each of which a route satisfying the constraints
exists. Many techniques are available to implement this approach, and this paper includes the
following: Clarke and Wright [l], Yellow [3], Insertion [4] and Gillet and Miller [5].
The analysis was run in two stages: the comparison of the results obtained with these
techniques and their improvement by using branch exchange procedures between routes. The
results seem to replicate those in [lo] for the travelling salesman. This is not surprising since the
problem studied in this paper is, apart constraints, similar to the m-travelling salesman. In
general, the best solution generated by these heuristic techniques is within 7% of the best
known solution, and using branch exchange procedure on that solution, we reach within 2% of
the best known solution.
Notice that a 2-OPT type (HI] and [7]) branch exchange procedure is used to solve
travelling salesman subproblems when needed.

4.1 Techniquesanalysed
This Section briefly summarizes the vehicle routing algorithms and their versions suited to
our problem.
4.1.1 Clarke and Wrighttechnique. The algorithm is initialized by creating one route for
each stop. In the following iterations, the number of routes is reduced by combining two of
them. The selection of routes to be combined is based on savings.
If it is assumed that each route starts and ends at the school (as in the original version [I]),
then the saving Sir for each pair of stops i, j is

Sij = dli + dlj - dij (4.1)

where 1 is the node number of the school and dij is the distance between stop i and j. These
savings are ordered in decreasing order, and pairs of stops i, j are successively analysed
according to this ordering. For a given pair i, j, two routes are combined into one if i and j are
extreme stops in two different routes (i.e. adjacent to the school in their route), and if this new
route satisfies the constraints..
In the context of school busing, it is not very realistic to assume that each route starts at the
school. One way to obviate this hypothesis is to evaluate the savings as follows

S, = i dli + i dkj- dij.

S$ is the saving for combining two routes with i and j as extreme stops if i and j are equidistant
from the school. Hence, instead of using (4.1) in our implementation, the savings are evaluated
according to the following relation
Sij = dli + dlj - hdij (4.2)
with values of A around 2.
 Schoolbus routes generatorin urban su~oundings 203

Another variant to evaluate the savings is also analysed:

Sij= dlj + dtj - hdij + [Idfi- dljl - &j]* (4.3)

In this relation, a term is added to reflect the increase in the distance to move from stop i(j) to
the school when stop j(i)is imposed as an intermediary stop, To illustrate this penalty

&j = [(dIi- dtjl- 4j1, (4.4)

assume that dlj > dlj (i.e. & - dlj > 0). The triangle inequality (assumed to be satisfied)implies
that

Hence [fdli- dljj - dij = dli - dgj- dq c 0. If dli - dlj - & = 0, then Fig. 1 illustrates that stop j is
along the route from stop i to the school. If dli - dlj - 4 < 0, then, as illustrated in Fig. 2, the
penalty increases (negatively)for more acute detour.
4.1.2 Yellowt~~~i~~e. This technique is similar to Ciark and Wright but generates only one
route at a time, Given the savings evaluated with (4.2) or (4.3), the heuristic is i~ti~ized by
inducing the edge (i, j) with the largest saving as the first edge on the route. Then, the route is
enlarged from its ends choosing edges in decreasing order of their savings. When no other edge
can be induced to enlarge the current route, the procedure is repeated with the remaining
stops to generate a new one.
4.1.3 ~~e~~on tec~~~ue.This tech~que also generates only one route at a time. A route is
set to start at the farther stop from the school. Then, for each of the rern~~~ stop, we
evaluate the cost of in~~uci~ it between every pair of consecutive stops on the current route.
The stop with the smallest cost is introduced, provided that the constraints are satisfied. This
procedure is repeated with the remaining stops until no other edge can be introduced to enlarge
the current route. When some stops still remains, the procedure is reinitialized to generate a
new route.
Two relations to evaluate the cost Aw for introducing a stop k between two consecutive
stops i and j are analysed. The first relation is defined as follows:

(4.5)

where
i if dli 3 dlj
1
= ] otherwise.

Priority is given here to stops inducing the smallest detour and lying farther from the school.
Fiire 3 iIlustrates the relation.
204 G. DULACetal.

In this example

A,32 = Wl3 + d32) (f23

dl2

and

A,42 = WI4 + d42) d

d12 24’

If (d13+ d32)= (d14+ d4J, then stop 3 is selected to be introduced in the route.
The second relation is defined as follows

Aikj= -h(Edlk + dij)+ dik+ dkj (4.6)

where

1 if the route does not start at the school,

B=
2 if the route starts and ends at the school.

The si~~ty of relations (4.6) and (4.1) means that this variant resembles Yellow technique. In
ad~tion it allows the introduction of a new stop between any pair of consecutive stops on the
route, so it should dominate Yellow technique.
4.1.4 Gillet and Miller (SWEEP) technique. In this technique, the stops are clustered into
subsets by sweeping an imaginary ray centered at the school. Unfortunately some geographical
constraints might be violated. Indeed, in some cases, pairs of stops cannot belong to the same
subset (e.g. two stops on opposite river banks cannot belong to the same route unless there is a
bridge near by crossing). This difficulty is obviated by checking route feasibility before
introducing a new stop.
Finally, some “look ahead” procedures [S] are incorporated in our implementation. These
procedures allow the introduction of other stops than the last one chosen.
4.1.5 ~e~fo~ and ~~~u~ ~ech~~~ue. The first step of the ~gorithm generates a giant tour
going through each stop and the school with the Clark and Wright algorithm by assuming that a
vehicle of i&rite capacity is available. This tour is next broken into routes satisfying the
constraints. Some “look ahead” procedures are also included here.

4.2 Exchanges procedures

These procedures are used to attempt reducing the total length of the routes by exchanging
stops between routes. These are similar in essence to 2-OPT [ 1l] and 3-OPT [73 procedures to
improve the length of a tour for the travelling salesman. When considering the marginal gain
and the large amount of computing time required to use 3-OPT type procedures, we restricted
our analysis to 2-OPT type procedures. Furthermore, procedures of this type were judged
sufficient for our purpose. Two different procedures are analysed: the frrst for the case where
routes start and end at the school, and the second for the case where routes start at arbitrary
stops.
The first procedure is a variant of the standard 2-OPT procedure [l 11applied to a large tour
obtained by placing the routes at the end of each other and spacing them by a dummy node
duplicating the school. This is illustrated in Fig. 4. An exchange takes place only if the new routes
satisfy the constraints.
The second procedure is even more straightforward. Each pair of routes is analysed
successively, and, for a given pair of routes, each possible exchange is analysed. This is
illustrated in Fig. 5. Denote the pair of routes by Pi and Pi, If, for A = 1,
 School bus routesgeneratorin urban surroundings 205

Fig. 4.

9 7
Q
J
/
/
, __,c_
//
s/

i::
before exchange after rxchonga

Fig. 5.

Table 2.

Techniques lariant Range of A Ntmber of solutions

Clarke and Wright (4.2) A = 1.5, 1.6.....

2.4, 2.5.

Clarke and Wright (4.3) h = 1.5, 1.6,...,

(C&W) 2.4, 2.5.

Yellow (4.2) A = 1.5, 1.6....,

(YLW) 2.4, 2.5

Insertion (4.5)
(INSR)

Insertion A = 0.9, 1.0, 1.1 3

(4.6)
(INSR)

Gillet and Miller

(GW)

Newton and Thomas 1

(N&T)
 Table 3.

Techniques C&W C&W YLW YLW INSR INSR G&M NIT

Problems \ (4.2) (4.3) (4.2) (4.3) (4.51 (4.6)

1.1 10 Routes 60.922 61.629 60.886

83 stops 11 Routes 54.907* 55.202' 62.247 63.408
582 student: 12 Routes 66.175 69.556 65.837
13 Routes 80.175

1.3 10 Routes 51.996' 50.336' 60.124 57.492 56.398 56.329 63.518 56.989
68 stops 11 Routes 60.883
545 students 12 Routes

C.P. time 5.4 5.8 17.7 20.0 4.9 13.9 2.0 3.0

1.4 10 Routes 52.551* 53.135O 60.088 56.177 56.890 57.852 69.414 61.211
77 stops 11 Routes 55.331 54.017 65.292 59.844
545 students 12 Routes 73.688 66. 684

C.P. time 6.3 6.7 17.8 20.2 5.9 17.8 3.1 4.1

1.5 10 Routes 56.290 56.127' 64.269 65.325 55.831'

96 stops 11 Routes 57.185 56.956 65.110 65.454 62.558 67.416
545 students 12 Routes 69.610 75.421

C.P. time 8.2 9.1 27.19 33.15 9.02 25.13 5.61 6.22
 Table 3(a),
Techniques C&Y C&W I YLW YLY INSR INSR GW N&T
Problems \ (4.2) (4.3) (4.2) (4.31 (4.5) (4.6)

2.1 11 Routes 61.896 61,022 56.010'

94 stops 12 Routes 54.858 54.292O 66.417 64.697 6j.991 66.269
28 students 13 Routes 70.043 67.942
74 Routes 75.112

C.P. time a.3 a.5 30.3 25.6 9.3 24.7 4.4

1
2.2 11 Route5 60.a24 63.084 64.747 !i5.731* 68.321 62.466
a2 STOPS 12 Routes 53.689' 53.689O 61.990 63.458
595 students 13 Routes 71.114 66.604

C.P. time 6.3 6.3 22.7 21.0 6.3 18.5 3.6 3.5

62.774
77 stops 12 Routes 55,245 66.234 66.957 70.591
596 students 13 Routes 57.005 57.005 68.516

C.P. time 5.6 6.0 24.4 26.4 6.0 17.2 2.5

2.4 11 Routes 61.072 62.852 57.419* 62.568

a5 stops 12 Routes 54.w* 56.591 64.391 68.166 64.575 70.401
68,194 66.516
C.P. time 6.2 7.4 25.7 27.0 7.4 19.5 4.6 3.8

2.5 ia ROES I I
99 stops 11 Rautes 56.203' 68.071 59.516
585 student: 12 Routes 59.185 60.155 65.235 x:: 69.450 64.748 73.925
13 Routes 68.975 77,300

C.P. time a.3 a.4 30.8 33.7 a.8 26.5 6.8 6.1
A.
 Table 3(b).

C&W C&W YLW YLW I NSR

(4.2) (4.3) (4.2) (4.3) (4.5)

3.1 8 Routes 33.662% 33.662% 42.293 40.155

60 stops 9 Routes 41.143 43.104 39.484

18 student C.P. time 4.3 4.4 12.1 14.4 4.2

- -

3:2 8 Routes 33.070" 33.070" 43.466 40.330 31.032 36,135 37.508

57 stops 9 Routes 33.093 33.093 42.561 38.753 37.370 30.455

90 student C.P. time 4.2 4.1 12.5 14.8 4.0 11.6 7.3 2.7

3.3 8 Routes 39.369* 39.615’ 42.380 44.358 40.077 41.377

55 stops 9 Routes 38.400 45.472 42.612 47.346 45.921

91 student C.P. time 6.1 5.4 14.6 13.3 3.1 8.9 1 3.8 1 5.7

8 Routes 39.278, 39.8390 44.510 46.674 43.664 1 50.944 1 46.864

3.4
62 stops 9 Routes 43.060 44.651 47.818 40.781
91 student 10 Routes 48.468 I I
I I
C.P. time 6.3 8.1 21.4 15.5 4.8 13.2 1 3.4 1 3.7
I 1

3.5 8 Routes 43.3500 43.350° 50.107 47.971 42.2X+ 48.980 1 46.150

70 stops 9 Routes 42.210 43.027 52.708 48.173
91 student 10 Routes 52.574 52.592 48.234

C.P. time 8.8 10.4 27.1 29.6 7.3

C.P. time in seconds, l indicates the best technique, and " tne second best technique for the problem
using criterion (4.7)
 School bus routesgeneratorin urban surroundings 209

then branches (I, SI) E Pi and (J, SJ) E Pj are replaced by (I, SJ) and (J, SI) to generate the
new routes Pi and Pi if routes Pi and Pi satisfy the constraints.
Notice that there may exist a pair (I, SI)EP~, (J, S.l)EPj such that the relation is not
verified for A = 1, and such that, if a 2-OPT procedure is applied to reduce the length of P’i and
Pi,

length Pi + length Pi G length Pi + length Pi.

Hence the test could be done with value of A larger than 1, and 2-OPT procedure should
be applied to P: and Pi to verify if total length decreases.

4.3 Numerical experimentation

All these techniques and procedures have been implemented in FORTRAN on the CYBER
173 of the University of Montreal. This paper does not include any details about the computer
coding, but we ought to mention that it takes advantages of the most recent data structure
techniques available [ 123.
The tests were performed on data made available by the Saint-Francois School board in
Drummondville.
A total of 15 problems were solved with several variants of these techniques. The
description of the problems (number of stops and number of students) is given in Tables 3 and
5. Table 2 summarizes the experiment design specifying the techniques, their variants, and the
range of the parameter A (when necessary). The number in the last column indicates the
number of time each problem is solved with different values of A.
For this experimentation, the constraints are specified as follows. It is assumed that only
one type of bus with a capacity of 60 students is used. (Notice that our implementation accepts
buses of different capacities.) The upper bound on the number of stops is set to 20, and the
upper bound on the length of a route is 20 kilometers. Furthermore, the distance between each
stop and its 10 nearest neighbours is evaluated.
Recall that, according to the discussion in Sec. 2, the best solution

Minimizes {(total distance) * (number of routes)}. (4.7)

Table 3 summarizes the results before any branch exchange procedure is applied. The
solution with the smallest total length is recorded for every different number of routes and for
each variant. The total C.P. solution time in seconds including the solution time for all different
values of A is also recorded.
Notice that a study to determine the best value of A in (4.2), (4.3) and (4.6) is omitted
because it was shown by Golden et al. ([lo], 121) that each problem must be solved with
different values of A since a good value of A for one problem might be bad for another.
We could infer from the results in Table 3 that, in general, INSR (4.6) dominates INSR (4.9,
YLW (4.2) and YLW (4.3) (as expected from the discussion in Sec. 4.1.3), and that N&T

Table 4.

Techniques Variant Range of a

Clarke and Wright (4.2) h = 1.5. 1.7, 1.9.

2.1. 2.3.
(C&W)

Clarke and Wright (4.3) A = 1.5. 1.7, 1.9.

2.1, 2.3.
(C&W)

Insertion (4.6) A = 0.9. 1.0, 1.1.

(INSR)

Newton and Thomas

(NIT)

CAOR Vol. 7, No. 3-E

210 G.DULAC etai.

Table 5.

F
Techniques
Problems

1.1

83 stops
,502student~

1.2

80 stops 11 Routes
545studentI C.P. time

1.3 10 Routes

68 stops 11 Routes I 52.095 I I

545student! C.P. time 24.4 I 34.1 I 33,l I 9.5

1.4 52.551? 55.729 1 59.673

77 stops

1.5

I
96 stops
b45Students

Table 5(a).

Techniques
Problems

2.2. 11 Routes

82 stops 12 Routes
595studentsI----
C.P. time 42.0 9.2

56.?70* 61.981
55.232 54.9690
56.944
38.8 38.9 36.7 10.7

55.15s 59.640'
54.883 i 55.892
 School bus routes generator in urban surroundings 211

Table S(b).

C.P. time in seconds, l indicates the best technique and

' indicates the second best technique for the problem

using (4.7)

Table 6.

Problems T Techniques
-
only

- T Best technique followed

by branch exchange
- - T Technique followed by
branch exchange 1
Best Best
N.R, OIST. N.R. DIST. RANK DIST.
technique O:T. 0:T. technique N.R. O;T.
- - - - r--

1.1 CM (4.2) 11 54.907 11 54.907 2 MT 10 59.414 0%

1.2 c&u (4.3) 10 52.262 2% 10 52.262 2% 2 C6W (4.2) 10 51.283 0%
1.3 C&W (4.3) 10 50.336 0.6% 10 50.029 0% 1 C&W (4.3) 10 50.029 0%
1.4 C&W (4.2) 10 52.551 0% 10 52.551 0% 1 C&W (4.2) 10 52.551 0%
1.5 INSR (4.6) 10 55.831 0.6% 10 65.484 0% 1 INSR (4.6) 10 55.484 0%
2.1 INSR (4.6) 11 56.010 0.3% 11 55.809 0% 1 INSR (4.6) 11 55.809 0%
2.2 INSR (4.6) 11 55.731 2.5% 11 54.579 0.4% 2 C&M (4.2) 11 54.363 0%
2.3 INSR (4.6) 11 57.567 1.4% 11 56.770 0% 1 INSR (4.6) 11 56.770 0%
2.4 INSR (4.61 11 57.419 4% 11 55.155 0% 1 INSR (4.6) 11 55.155 0%
2.5 N&T 10 60.982 0% 10 60.982 0% 1 N&T 10 60.982 0%
3.1 CY (4.21, 8 33.662 0% 8 33.662 0% 1 C&W I:.;], 8 33.662 0%
(4.3)
3.2 0 33.070 7.3% 8 31.355 1.7% 2 cm ;:.:;. a 30.816 0%
cw I::?
3.3 CY (4.2) 8 39.369 6.6% a 37.423 1.3% 2 C&W (4.3) 8 36.942 0%
3.4 C&U (4.2) 8 39.278 8 38.853 2 INSR (4.6) 7 41.336 0%
3.5 INSR (4.6) 8 42.253 4.2% a 40.515 0% 1 INSR (4.6) 8 40.515 M
- - - -

N.R. is the number of routes, DIST is the total distance. % OPT is the percentage of deviation
from the best known solution. and Rank is the rank of the solution obtained with the best tech-
nique followed by a branch exchange among the solutions obtained with the techniques followed
by a branch exchange.
212 G. DULACet al.

dominates G&M. Hence the analysis of branch exchange efficiency is restricted to C&W,
INSR, and N&T techniques. Thus, each problem was solved according to the pattern in Table
4, and an improvement of each solution was attempted with a branch exchange procedure.
These results, summarized in Table 5, indicate that the improvement with branch exchange is
smaller for C&W solutions than it is for other techniques solutions. This follows from the fact
that C&W technique is minimizing total length rather than locally minimizing the length of one
route at a time as does INSR technique.
Finally, in Table 6, the best solution using only a routing technique is compared with the
best solution using also a branch exchange procedure. There, the first columns summarize the
results for the best technique found in Table 3, the middle ones summarize the results using
branch exchange procedure to improve the best solution of Table 3, and the last ones
summarize the results for the best technique found in Table 5. For each problem, suppose that
the best solution in Table 5 is taken as the best known solution. Then a percentage of deviation
(% OPT) is evaluated for the two other solutions retained in Table 6. These results indicate that
7.3% is the maximum deviation using only a routing technique and that the maximum deviation
reduces to 1.7% using also a branch exchange procedure. These results replicate those of
Golden et al. [ lo] in their study of heuristics to solve the travelling salesman. These results also
indicate that the solution in the second column of Table 6 is the best or second best solution
according to % OPT.
Conclusions are very hard to draw since there is no technique dominating all the others for
every problem. Furthermore, the relative quality of the solutions obtained with the different
techniques seems to be problem dependent. Hence each problem should be solved with C&W,
INSR, and N&T. On the other hand, since a branch exchange procedure is very time consuming
and not very useful to improve solutions generated with C&W technique, its use should be
restricted to the improvement of solutions generated with INSR and N&T techniques and to the
improvement of the best solution using only a routing technique.

5. CONCLUSION
This is the initial stage of a system generating and scheduling school bus routes in time. The
routes generated are input into a subsystem to be scheduled in time, given that schools starting
and ending times are either hxed or to be determined by the system itself (see [13]). Further
reports on these other subsystems should appear in a near future.

Acknowledgement-The authors would like to express their sincere gratefulness to the authorities of Saint-Francois School
board and in particular to Lucien Bolduc for his availability and constructive comments.

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